Principal Engineer, Core Product

About Homebase and the Role

Join Homebase, a dynamic and fast-paced company dedicated to supporting small businesses. The culture is driven by empathy, rapid progress, and making meaningful impact. As a Principal Engineer specializing in Core Product areas like Payroll, Scheduling, Time Tracking, and HR Management, you will play a vital role in shaping the technical roadmap and architecture that supports over 100,000 small- and medium-sized businesses.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as a senior technical leader collaborating with other Staff and Principal Engineers to define and advance Homebase's technical vision and architecture across critical Core Product domains.
• Lead the planning and implementation of Homebase's API strategy to enhance internal development velocity, enable external integrations, and unlock partnership opportunities.
• Drive the design and decomposition of core product systems into modular, bounded services applying domain-driven design and Service-Oriented Architecture principles.
• Proactively identify and address technical challenges such as data consistency, performance issues, and reliability risks before they affect customers.
• Promote engineering excellence through establishing standards and practices that elevate quality voluntarily, provide mentorship to senior engineers, and foster a strong engineering culture.
• Collaborate closely with product, data, design, and engineering leadership to align technical initiatives with business goals and product roadmaps.
• Lead AI-first engineering practices by experimenting with and deploying AI-powered tools that accelerate development workflows, such as code generation and test automation, while guiding teams in adopting these techniques effectively.

Qualifications and Strengths

• Over 12 years of experience in software engineering, with substantial expertise in scaling distributed systems and evolving legacy architectures.
• Deep proficiency in Ruby on Rails development is highly preferred.
• Proven history of defining and executing technical strategy that spans multiple product domains or teams.
• Strong passion for mentoring engineers and leading teams through architectural transitions.
• Advanced knowledge in domain-driven design, API design, SOA, and event-driven architecture.
• Experience in payroll, workforce management, or other complex business verticals is a notable advantage.
• Skilled at influencing decisions across teams without formal authority through clear communication and collaboration.
• Excellent communication abilities to articulate intricate technical choices to diverse audiences, including engineers, product managers, and executives.
• Demonstrated daily use and promotion of AI tools to improve engineering outcomes and a history of fostering AI adoption among peers.
• Comfortable and effective in high-velocity environments emphasizing rapid shipping and iterative improvement.

AI Leadership Expectations

• Advocate for AI adoption within teams and across the engineering organization by recognizing and leveraging AI's potential to create meaningful productivity gains.
• Quantify and communicate the impact of AI enhancements on velocity, product quality, and developer experience.
• Contribute as a key participant in AI platform initiatives that speed up product development and improve feature quality.

Core Values: The Homie Way

• Customer Centricity: Approach problems with empathy and creative solutions.
• Speed and Learning: Embrace experimentation, rapid action, and continuous growth.
• Ownership: Make thoughtful decisions with big-picture awareness and accountability.
• Craftsmanship: Pursue excellence through dedication and initiative.
• Collaboration: Prioritize goals over roles, lead with trust, and unite around the mission.

Benefits Offered (Canada)

• Equity: Stock options along with TFSA/RRSP savings plans including 4% company matching contributions.
• Comprehensive Medical Coverage: Inclusive medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and their dependents.
• Generous Paid Leave: Flexible paid time off, company holidays, and designated focus periods.
• AI Resources: Access to premium AI tools for experimentation and professional development without significant restrictions.
• Family Support: Maternity and parental leave top-up benefits available after six months of tenure.
• Flexible Work Arrangements: Includes a Work From Anywhere month and designated meeting-free weeks annually.
• Protection Plans: Life insurance plus short- and long-term disability coverage.
• Workspace Amenities: Provided meals, team offsite events, and customer engagement days.
• Hybrid Work Model: Tuesdays and Wednesdays are mandatory in-office days to foster collaboration, faster decision making, and stronger team bonds.

Hiring Process Overview

• Initial meeting with Talent Acquisition team.
• Interview with the Hiring Manager.
• Technical interview assessing relevant engineering skills.
• Meetings with cross-functional partners in Product and Engineering.
• Conversations focusing on company values and AI mindset with senior engineers.
• Background verification followed by formal offer.

Additional Information

Homebase embraces diversity and inclusion as core principles and encourages candidates from all backgrounds to apply, including those with criminal histories subject to local regulations. The compensation band for this position ranges between 237,300 and 305,800 Canadian dollars annually.